


Celestial

by BrightEyesEren



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Pining Keith (Voltron), Pining Lance (Voltron), i should be sleeping jesus it's past midnight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-09-19 15:38:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9447959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrightEyesEren/pseuds/BrightEyesEren
Summary: Keith's overly passionate friend Lance helps him make a life changing decision.





	

**Author's Note:**

> [song used for inspiration](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2ffRUO7WSY)

“Have you ever considered what it would be like to go into space? Like, be out there, floating somewhere outside Earth, looking at the stars so much closer?” They were laying on the beach on a Saturday evening as usual to watch the sun set below the horizon, Lance’s arms crossed behind his head, Keith’s arms over his chest. Both stayed less than a foot apart, leaving a little personal space both were afraid to intrude on, even if neither cared to admit the fact (though Lance nor Keith minded if the gap was closed up, no one made the effort to do so).

 

“Yeah, of course. Isn’t it one of those super typical childhood dreams to want to be an astronaut?” Keith turned to face him.

 

“I know that,” Lance scoffed, “I more meant… seriously considered it. Studying science, becoming an actual, real astronaut, and really going to space. Wouldn’t it be cool?” Keith considered it for a moment. There was no doubt that leaving the Earth to explore something outside of it would be a once in a lifetime experience, but he never thought of the idea seriously, even with his last year of high school coming to a close faster that he wanted to notice and take note of. He didn’t have a career in place or even so much as a thought of one. 

 

Part of him didn’t care if he ended up as a fast food restaurant worker for the rest of his life with no more than his high school diploma in tact. He could get a decent enough job to life in a decent enough apartment and live a decent enough life. Simple and easy and without unnecessary complication. He didn’t have to be anything like his friend Shiro, who was already am extraordinarily successful engineer that graduated two years early. He didn’t need to have hopes and dreams and aspirations like Lance that were so high, they didn’t just shoot for the stars- they  _ were  _ the stars.

 

There was still another part of him that wanted to succeed, though. Wouldn’t his parents be proud if he could do something great with his life? Wouldn’t Shiro give that warm, approving smile at the news of him becoming an astronaut? Wouldn’t he feel like he finally did something with his life after nearly eighteen years of floating along, hoping an opportunity would magically land at his feet with a smile and pat on the back, a solid B+ for effort?

 

“It… would be cool, I guess. Being an astronaut would be alright.”

 

“Alright? I guess? Keith, come on! It’s being an  _ astronaut.  _ It’s cooler than any other job in the world. You get to be out  _ there.”  _ Lance pointed up at the sky, gesturing to the stars that began to dot across the plum colouration blooming in the upper atmosphere. The sun had already gone entirely down and out of sight by the time Keith finished his thoughts on possibly exploring space, the fading pinks and golds dipping beneath the water and leaving blues and deep purples in their place.

 

“Up there, huh?” He didn’t have to look directly at Lance to see his enthusiastic nod. This wasn’t the first time they talked about exploring space. It was always Lance that brought up the subject, explaining the latest news to Keith the second he saw him in the hallway, during lunch, or during class.

 

‘They finally have pictures of Pluto!’, he would screech, much to the dismay of both Keith and random passerbys in the school. Then the next day would be some findings of a water-like substance on another planet, some obscure fact about one of the moons of Jupiter, a new revelation he had on Galileo, a new favourite star of his (he already had forty-six, last time Keith checked), more facts about his favourite planet, HD 189733 b, which Keith never knew how he remembered. Lance was always so passionate about space, from the first day Keith met him in their shared first hour astronomy class.

 

Keith was never one for the first few classes of the day, regardless of what they were. It was still too early in the morning for him to think, to do math, to write a paper, ramble on about history or so on and get invested in the lessons being presented to him. Everyone else was tired at that time in the morning.

 

Except for Lance.

 

Lance was always up and ready to go the second the bell rang for class to start. He was always overly eager to answer every question the teacher had for the class, ace every test that was placed on his desk, give the best presentation to the class no matter the specific topic at hand.

 

At first, Keith thought he was just being some over achieving asshole. Why would he work so hard to impress everyone over something like a planet that horizontally rains glass? His cheap flirting didn’t work with anyone in the class, no matter how many space related pick up lines he tried and failed to use. His ego was out of this world too, and Keith hated him for the first month of school, at the very least. Two months, if he wanted to be a little more honest with himself about the fact.

 

It wasn’t until Lance invited him to sit with him at lunch one day that he realised it wasn’t all a cheap act. The flirting? Yes, that still remained a terrible, cheap part of his personality he tried too hard to pull off. His passion for everything astronomy related? Absolutely not. He wouldn’t shut up for even a minute about it, Keith found out. They could be talking about a completely different subject and Lance would still incorporate galaxies into it one way or another. Keith never understood how a conversation could switch from sandwiches to the properties of gas planets in less than thirty seconds.

 

And yet, he found himself growing more and more interested in Lance’s ranting as the months passed by. He cared to remember the excessively long name of his favourite planet and the names of the Galilean moons of Jupiter (he still heard Lance shouting out “Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto” at him until he got it right enough to please him and answer correctly on a test), and it was no surprise that the day Keith went to his house to study for their upcoming finals, Lance’s room was decorated with various posters and figurines and more glow in the dark star stickers than the average person, even his bed sheets covered in nebulas. His friend’s obsession with space became normal to him in every way possible, almost to the point that it was endearing rather and annoying. He couldn’t hate someone who had that much genuine passion over anything.

 

It was even less of a surprise when Lance told him he wanted to become an astronaut. Why wouldn’t he want to explore everything he grew up loving? It only made sense for him to make that his life. 

 

But what was Keith’s life supposed to be, with a lack of passion for any subject? Die in the back of a greasy fast food restaurant, living off of slightly better than minimum wage? If he was going to work, he wanted to work in something bearable, that wouldn’t make him live alone in an apartment with a thousand cats looking after him instead of a spouse.

 

“Keith? You still there?” He hadn’t realised he zoned out that long until Lance was waving a hand in front of his face, giving him the squinted eyes and little pout of confusion and mild concern.

 

“Oh, uh, yeah, I’m good. Just zoned out for a second.”

 

“No duh. You had that distance look on your face again, like you were lost somewhere in the milky way.” Lance rested his arm back behind his head once again. Keith noticed some of the gap between them from earlier closed up. He appreciated that, with the cold of night beginning to dip in and a warm body shifting closer.

 

“I was considering the astronaut thing, is all. It’s so much work to qualify for something like that, you know? I’m not sure if I want to spend the money and time to do it.”

 

“What would you do instead?” Keith was caught off guard. Normally, Lance would jump right into convincing him to become an astronaut with him, join Voltron academy the summer after they graduate and live their lives exploring space until they grew old and died on a distant planet. He never asked him what he would do instead. The silence of Keith’s response made Lance ramble on in what sounded like nervousness.

 

“I mean, like, if you won’t be doing something as awesome as I will, you know? You’ve never told me your backup plan.”

 

“I don’t have one.”

 

“What? Really?”

 

“Yeah, is it that big of a deal if I don’t have a backup plan for a career?” Lance hesitated on a reply and returned with a softened tone of voice.

 

“No, I’m not saying it’s bad. I’m saying... Why don’t you go to space with me, if you don’t have anything else to do? It’s a lot of commitment, but it would be life changing, Keith. The good kind of life changing.” 

 

Keith contemplated the statement a few times over. He glossed over the real meaning of Lance’s words with his own desired meaning, the hummingbird speed of his heart starting up again to his own dismay. At the core, Lance only wanted to go to space. With him. Those two words made the meaning so much more difficult to understand and accept. He only wanted to go see the stars and the planets out there.

 

_ With him.  _

 

He said those words, said it would take commitment, said it was be life changing but for the better rather than the worse. Of course, he was referring to the years of schooling and money and physical exertion and will it would take to become an astronaut. There was no way someone as dense as Lance would’ve picked up on something as small and kept together as Keith’s boxed up feelings. There was no way he would have intentionally said something like that to get his heart going and make a shade of red purposely tint his face under the night’s light.

 

He was merely suggesting a career option for the future, something to commit to with him as best friends. Keith didn’t need to take anything a step further than it needed to be.

 

“Space… with you. What if I do decide to go?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“What then? We make it through school, we make it through training…” Keith trailed off to let Lance finish his statement for him.

 

“... then we spend the rest of our lives exploring space. It’s practically infinite out there, Keith. There’s nothing to stop you from discovering more and more. There’s not a shortage of stars or planets or nebulas or anything in the universe. I’ve never heard anyone say there’s not enough to learn about space, after all. It would be a life of learning more about everything out there with you.”

 

Keith always appreciated when he got deep and personal with him. The cheesy grins and shameless flirting got on his nerves every now and again, but it was rare that he would have time like this with Lance, where the public façade would drop and that gentle tone would take over instead. As far as Keith knew and hoped, this only happened with him. No one else knew the Lance that would move close enough to let their shoulders touch while he mapped out their futures together with such a warm voice and warm body and warm smile that Keith could feel his heart grow warmer that it had ever been before, enough that it felt like it was going to burst like the supernovas Lance ranted on about.

 

It only took a single one of these instances of pure, radiating warmth for Keith to have a full blown epiphany over the fact that he had feelings for someone like Lance. His public persona could be far worse, but it was that raw version of Lance that he saw in private that blew him away. The one that would pour his heart out about his hopes and dreams and fears and worst memories and be quiet and wholeheartedly listen on the chance that Keith shared his own in return. It was this real version of Lance that made Keith’s heart seize in his chest and his breathing catch in his throat and all the blood in his body rush up to his face no matter how much he willed all the reactions away. 

 

The feeling scared him the first time, he would admit, but now he craved the comfortable sensation instead. He felt excited for those upcoming Saturday sunset and star sessions to have his own, personal and private time with Lance. He wanted to hear more of his laughter and see more of his smile and hear every single second that he spoke to Keith about anything under the sky (even though it was almost always about space, which was to be expected but never frowned upon).

 

“So… an entire life of you and the stars, huh?”  _ Like some romance novel come true?  _ He added on in his head. He wouldn’t say something like that to Lance out loud. Not quite yet, not right now.

 

“Exactly. Doesn’t that sound great?”

 

Lance might be over the top with every stupid pick up line and every snort mixed in with his laughter and his petty competitiveness in a class no one could ever exceed him in, but then there were those moments that Keith realised why he stayed out until the middle of the night with him every Saturday to watch the stars consume the world around them. He was smarter than almost everyone he met in his life, he could be funny despite Keith’s neglect to admit it more often with his own laughter, he cared enough to ask questions about Keith when his own ego wasn’t taking control, and most importantly, he helped him make a decision that would change his life. The good kind of life changing. 

 

Oh, his unspoken love for Lance was as infinite as the planets he adored telling Keith about. He was celestial, he was brighter than every star in the universe, more beautiful than every ring on Saturn, more mysterious than that long-named planet he constantly talked about more than he talked about himself.

 

He would travel far more than the moon and back to be with him.

 

“It does sound great, Lance. I’ll go to space with you.”

**Author's Note:**

> why did i write this what even happened i'm so fucking tired 
> 
> but i love this and i'm going to sleep happily tonight g o sh-
> 
> kudos/ comments would definitely be appreciated <3


End file.
